Large installations containing racks or arrays of products such as solar cells used to generate electricity are becoming more and more common and desirable. Very often these arrays are located in large, open exposed areas such as fields, former landfills and rooftop settings. These large arrays are rather heavy and must be supported on the ground or other surface on which they rest and in addition, the supporting elements must safeguard against the array moving, shifting or even being toppled from natural elements such as the wind.
In the prior art, such arrays are either permanently or semi-permanently attached to the ground or other surface supporting the structure utilizing steel beams or large concrete blocks. Prior art systems for affixing solar panels and wind turbines are commercially available in numerous forms. These systems generally fall into 2 categories.
The first category of systems requires significant site work and uses either poured cement footings or objects (such as auger screws) driven into the ground or rooftops to act as anchors for applications such as a solar panel mounting system.
The second category of systems uses ballast (weight) to hold down parts of the application mounting system. The ballast used in present systems generally consists of singularly large or multiple cement blocks for each ballast site. For typical solar field applications, these ballast blocks can weigh as much as 8 tons. While this approach seems to impact the terrain at or on which the weight is mounted minimally, the peripheral damage done to the terrain in moving the ballast weights into position can be significant. This occurs because in many cases, utilizing the prior art array mounting system necessitates the use of large machinery which can permanently damage the ground or in some instances, cannot even be brought to the installation site; require permanent or semi-permanent installation elements such as steel beams attached to a roof structure; or otherwise necessitate significant disturbance to the area at which the array is to be mounted such as the use of large auger screws inserted in the ground.
A problem with present systems is that they require significant site work and/or greatly disturb the terrain when equipment is run over the terrain. In many potential sites for solar or wind turbine applications, it is not possible or desirable to have such extensive site work done. Further, more site work will be needed when the solar or wind turbine application is eventually removed.
For example, closed and capped landfills provide an ideal large, expansive and open area on which to mount solar arrays. Unfortunately, however, closed landfills are generally capped with a rubber or other similar impervious membrane which cannot be penetrated by auger screws and large machinery cannot be moved onto the capped landfill for fear of damaging the cap.
Therefore, it is important and indeed a requirement that in order to place a structure on certain areas, such as on top of capped landfills or roofs for example, the installation must not puncture or otherwise damage the ground or structure on which the array is going to be placed.
An additional concern is that in present systems for solar or wind turbine applications, significant site work is required to manage the electrical wiring. For example, in open space applications in the United States, either 18 inch deep trenches for wiring conduit or 6 inch deep trenches with wiring conduit covered by at least 3 inches of concrete must be created to bury a majority of the wiring for such electricity generating systems.
Accordingly, a system and method is needed which provides a mounting system or ballast to support a large array, such as a solar array, which will not itself damage any underlying structure while still adequately supporting the array, and which can be easily installed and, if ultimately needed to be uninstalled, utilizing equipment, if required, that will not damage the underlying structure and/or surface on which the array is mounted. Moreover, a system is also needed to provide wire management such that a safe enclosure of high voltage AC or DC wires is provided without the need for digging either shallow trenches with concrete above or deep trenches without concrete.
An additional concern and consideration in the use and placement of such arrays is the significant manpower required to mount the individual smaller pieces or cells which collectively make up the larger array. Because such cells are manufactured products, there are slight differences in their manufactured height, width or thickness. These variances must be accounted for in any mounting system. In addition, it is often required to angle or tilt such arrays in order to properly orient the array in the case of, for example, solar arrays which must be properly angled towards the sun to achieve the best results.
Such current mounting systems require metal braces and/or support structures to be assembled using nuts and bolts to hold the individual pieces together. Constructing such a racking or mounting system is time-consuming. In addition, there is often not enough adjustment in the mounting system to account for the variances and/or tolerances in the individual cells or pieces being assembled and mounted together.
Accordingly, what is needed is a mounting or racking system which is easy to assemble and easy to adjust to account for variances and tolerances in the underlying elements being mounted and which can easily be easily positioned and repositioned as required.